Henry, The Wampeter
by potterology
Summary: Wampeter (noun); an object around which the lives of a group of cosmically linked persons may revolve. "Either help me get my son back or get out of the way. Last chance." Emma flicked her wrist and dug the edge of her sword in slightly deeper." Rating for language and later violence. Neverland, a witch doctor, the Underworld and Charming Family feels! Poss CS later.
1. Ashore

_I've become completely obsessed with OUAT recently. So entertaining. So, yeah, here's my story! It will be multi-chapter with guest appearances from Princess and the Frog and Hercules (though, not necessarily Hercules himself!). Thanks for reading, enjoy! :) _

_Also, I'm a huge Kurt Vonnegut fan. **Wampeter** is from bokonoism, which is a fictitious religion created in the novel Cat's Cradle. Prepare for a lot of references._

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_**Wampeter** (noun); an object around which the lives of a group of cosmically linked persons may revolve._

Emma Swan had never been one for fairytales. She knew the basics, sure, but when it came to the nitty gritty details of the thing, it all turned to guesses and vague recognition. There was always a Prince, a damsel in distress and a monster; if you were talking Disney, the good guys won and all was well, and if you were more inclined to the Grimm version of things, the good guys got gutted but everyone learned a valuable lesson. Reality, however, rarely lived up to expectation. And so, when Emma Swan set foot upon Neverland, the famed home of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys, she was wholly unprepared for what rose up to greet her.

Hook had warned them the land was cursed, full of misery and despair, but Emma was not expecting just how utterly _correct_ he had been. Black, twisting vines replaced the vast green forests of her imagination; instead of white sandy shores, she was met by a forty yards wide line of inky shards of fine glass, biting into the soles of her shoes with every step; even the very air they breathed seemed to be conspiring against them, every inhale turning to frost in her lungs. She shuddered against the cold seeping through her clothing, soaking into her bones.

Next to her, Mary Margaret - _Snow White _my mother, she thought - gasped.

"What happened here?" she asked Hook, who stepped out onto the beach last, the very picture of reluctance. He met her eyes for only a second.

"Every land has its demons. The Enchanted Forest has the Dark One. Wonderland has the Jabberwocky. Neverland has Pan." The previously still air swirled at his words, and Emma was sure the night sky clouding over just as fiercely had nothing to do with an overactive imagination. For the first time in a very long time, Emma felt true, deep fear stab her as if she had been run through with a shard of ice.

"Let's just find Henry," Regina said, her voice unsure and quiet. Hook shook his head.

"Not a good idea, love. I suggest we all get our pretty hides back aboard the Rodger, sail her out a-ways and wait until morning."

Gold almost snorted. "What's the matter, Hook? Scared?"

"To my wits end," the pirate answered simply. It was enough for Emma to reconsider traipsing around in the dark on an island giving off harsher vibes than an overweight, moustached prison guard.

She took a moment to stare into the black canopy ahead, almost expecting Henry to coming bounding through the trees and barrelling into her legs, but eventually sighed and said, "Hook's right. Getting ourselves killed this early on isn't going to help Henry." David - she remembered calling him Dad, but it sounded funny now, even in her own head - nodded at her, turning towards her in what oddly looked like deference. Mary Margaret did the same, as did Gold and even Regina after a pained glance at her shoes. Hook still stood off to one side, not looking at any of them.

"So, what's the plan?" Regina asked. Emma took a deep breath. In an unspoken, impromptu election, it seemed they were going to follow her lead on this. A tiny part of her, the part which remembered the kings of the fairytales, wondered if this was what it felt like to command an army, or even an entire kingdom. The absolute responsibility and power that came with being the big cheese; it felt demanding and heady and bizarre, not to mention entirely unwelcome. But she met her father's steady gaze and whatever niggling doubts she had rattling around her brain disappeared, leaving only a resonating - and entirely unfounded - strength.

She made a decision. "We'll wait out the night on the ship and after that, I think we should split up. Gold, Mary Margaret and David will go east; myself, Regina and Hook will head west. In twenty-four hours, we'll meet back here at the Rodger. If neither of us have found anything useful by then, we can start using more colourful means of finding Henry." She shared a meaningful glance with Gold, who nodded slightly.

Satisfied with the plan, the group turned back to the ship, David lagging behind slightly so as to walk side-by-side with his daughter. "I'm impressed," he said.

Emma smiled. "With?"

"You. I'd never have been so diplomatic."

"You're talking about the groups?"

"Yeah. Magical being on either side paired with minimal tension. Hook and Regina are on good terms and they don't seem to have a problem with you, at least not anymore. Your mother and I have no quarrel with Gold. It's clever." He stopped, looking down at his boots, suddenly shy. "I just want you to know, no matter what, we are so proud of you."

Emma stared for a moment. She honestly didn't know what to say. What does one say after twenty-eight years of harbouring very little more than unbridled animosity towards their own parents, only to find out they are the most selfless people she had ever met? Most kids she had met in the system talked about their parents hating them, mistreating them, but Emma had always thought on some level her parents were worse: they didn't hate her, they just couldn't muster enough feeling to even _keep_ her. Wasn't some emotion, even anger, better than none at all?

Now she knew the truth, things were obviously different, however the abandoned little girl in the back of her head couldn't help but wonder if they were satisfied. They had put a baby in a wardrobe and twenty-eight years later, a barely-functioning, emotional cripple was spat back out. How could anyone be happy with that compromise?

As if sensing her momentary crisis, he silently leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead, Emma freezing on the spot but not flinching away. It was easy to imagine him doing this after scraped knees and pulled pigtails, perhaps even after a nightmare or two, and when he pulled back with a half-smile, carrying on towards the ship once more, Emma let out a long breath. Okay. So maybe Dad didn't sound quite as foreign in her head anymore.

With the exception of a few grunts and whispered conversations, the next morning was silent. Hook's entire demeanour had flipped inwards, no longer the rakish rogue, and instead played the role of brooding quartermaster, pouring over all the maps and compasses he could get his hands on. Emma couldn't say she missed the pirate leering at her, but his sullen silence worried her more than she expected it would. Neverland seemed to have sucked the life right out of his jaunty step and that could not bode well for any of them.

In the warmer light of the morning, the beach had softened somewhat. The tree line no longer seemed an impenetrable wall, more inviting and playful, and the glass 'sand' that had seemed so terrifying last night reflected back the sunshine, twinkling in the daylight. She supposed it must act like a mirror and decided she most definitely preferred Neverland during the brighter hours.

"Ready?" Hook asked as he stepped off the ship behind her. She nodded, looking to her parents who were eyeing Regina warily. _They must be worried she'll try and rip my heart out the second they're out of view_.

"So, we all remember the plan?" she said. Gold, who had exchanged the suit and tie for something akin to Hook's garb, turned to her.

"East, you said?" He gestured, not looking, at one end of the island.

"Yeah. If you find something along the shore, shoot up green sparks. If you guys run into trouble, send up red ones. We'll do the same," she said. It was strange how confident her instructions came out, and she was suddenly glad of her short tenure as Sheriff, without which she doubted she would possess any kind of authority they could have faith in. Regina, who had similarly switched clothing, took a measured look at Mary Margaret and Emma couldn't help but tense, waiting for some kind of scathing remark or another.

Instead, Regina just sighed and said, "See you in twenty-four hours." Mary Margaret accepted the comment without question, moving to wrap her arms around her daughter.

"Be safe, Emma. And for the love of Mother Superior, don't go letting them cut down a beanstalk with you still at the top," she mumbled into blonde curls. Emma nodded. It was not hard to detect the concern and stern warning underneath the humour in her mother's voice.

"Good luck." And both sides turned, trudging off in their specified directions. Emma cast a final glance over her shoulder at her mother and father, wondering if they felt the same gnawing feeling of doubt, worry and anger she felt over missing Henry. Judging by her mother's slumped shoulders and her father's soothing hand at her back, Emma assumed so.


	2. Tink

_**Thank you for being patient, thank you for the reviews and the follow/favourites. This is a busy archive so it's great to know that this is being enjoyed! So, onwards. Also, I could not help myself in putting in the little line from the promo. Fingers crossed it's who I think she's talking to. - P. **_

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Neverland, she decided, blew.

Mary-Margaret, David and Gold had marched away towards what looked like little more than a massively long stretch of beach, disappearing over a large sand dune only moments after the small group split off, while Emma, Hook and Regina had gone west and had wound up being forced inland as the beach ran out. It had taken the better part of the day, much to Emma's annoyance and the sun was now hanging low enough to cause a modicum of concern. They had to find Henry, even a trace of him, and soon. With every step, she tried to convince herself they were getting closer but a spiteful little voice in the back of her head was telling her she was wrong, that she might never find him and he would be doomed to whatever miserable fate Pan had in store for him. Her heart seized at the image of Henry, scared and alone, and it spurred her onwards. Besides, whole place was giving Emma the creeps and she couldn't help but feel that something - or, God forbid, someone - was watching them.

The heat on the beach was unbearable and reminded her far too much of Florida summers, and the thought of Tallahassee only made her think of Neal and a certain desperate 'I love you', which in turn made her sad and angry all at once, but it was nothing compared to the suffocating humidity of the jungle.

Deciding it was easier to switch off if there was a distraction, she decided, after a few hours of careful trudging, to ask Hook about Neverland and what they could expect from the island. He'd already told the place was horrid and dangerous (_"everything on this island wants you dead and anyone who says differently is selling something"_) but knowing something about the geography of the place could surely be only beneficial.

She would probably come to regret asking later, but for now she was content to listen, glad for his voice to take her mind off of things she really preferred not to think about while being forced into a live-action Lord of the Flies.

"There are three main port of calls," Hook explained, hacking intermittently at low vines and thorny bushes. "The first, largest and therefore hardest to navigate, is Pelegosto or Pan's Island, where we are now. If you weren't Cora's daughter," he glanced back at Regina, then Emma, "and I hadn't seen you with a sword, it would be hard to imagine either of you surviving the night. The Lost Ones are crafty little buggers. Don't let them fool you - children, they are not." He slashed again at a particularly vicious looking weed before continuing. "Pantano River starts at the very top of the island, Neverpeak, and runs straight down into a spring on the other side. This would be the second port, Mermaid's Lagoon. Nasty creatures, mermaids. As far as I know, there's only ever been one who was half decent and last I heard, she got turned into a codfish. Lost a bet with a squid or something along those lines."

Another clump of bushes fell under his sword, one with blooming, oversized purple petals and spindly needles that ended in a vicious hook. The irony was not lost on the three of them.

Things around them had changed, Emma noticed, gradually at first and then all at once, from the light and inviting atmosphere of the beach in the morning sun to a threatening, hollow darkness that pressed in at them them from all sides. The trees got closer, taller and thicker; the bushes and shrubs became twisting vines; whatever life within the thick ferns along the beach had been strangled out of them by the time she started spotting them in the jungle; and jovial greens and brilliant yellows were lost to crimson and black ink.

"Are they really any worse than pirates?" Emma asked.

Hook made a face, which in turn became a hard frown. Despite the relatively short time she had known him, she had come to expect him to answer with a dirty smirk, or in this case perhaps a quip along the lines of 'hell hath no fury like a mermaid scorned', but none came. Just a strange look and a tight nod. He seemed suddenly solemn, lost in whatever morbidity that had taken hold of him since anchoring in Neverland. Captain Hook, it appeared, had stayed behind in Storybrooke - they were traipsing around the jungle with Killian Jones and he carried far more weight upon his shoulders than the flirty pirate.

"Much, much worse," he answered. "There is not a man alive who has ventured into Mermaid's Lagoon." The 'and returned' was superfluous and the implication was heavy.

Emma could not stop the involuntary shudder. As a child, she had always been a sucker for scary campfire stories, gasping and cowering in all the right places, and something about Hook's tone sent chills through her body. It was often too easy to take death at face value, to dismiss it or shrug it off with a clever joke, but in the slowly darkening jungle, alone with a pirate and an evil queen, it felt much too real and uncomfortably close. Gooseflesh rose along her arms, followed by an irritating itch forming deep under the skin of the back of her neck and crawling down her spine. The desire to turn and run screaming back to her mother rose, unbidden, and she rolled her eyes at herself.

"And the third?" Regina said in an attempt at breaking the thickening tension that had settled, unfortunately falling just shy of the mark. The feeling of being watched, which had never quite left them to begin with, intensified.

"Ah," Hook replied, cracking a wry smile, "My personal favourite: Tortuga. Almost a days sail North from here but most definitely worth it."

Emma blinked. "Seriously? Tortuga?"

"Something wrong, Swan?"

"Is Jack Sparrow real too?"

"I think he prefers _Captain_ Jack Sparrow, but I can't say, I've never actually met the man." Hook shrugged but Emma shook her head.

"Nevermind," she sighed. Sometimes, she swore she could actually _feel_ her life getting weirder by the second. "What's in Tortuga?"

His face broke into a much too wide grin. "Beggars, liars, gypsies, thieves; crueller men than I, looser women than you and enough rum to fuel an army. If you're looking for a crew or an adventure, Tortuga is the destination of choice. Quite literally means Pirate in the native tongue." He chuckled at the look on Emma's face - somewhere between disbelief and, though she was loathe to admit it, keen interest - and came to a stop just as they passed into a clearing. "I think we're close."

The sun had definitely started to set, only barely shining through the incredibly thick canopy above, and all around them appeared to shine in a dim blue light. The colours she had found so foreboding only moments ago, the deep reds and blues, were sorely missed as the jungle surrendered itself to the oppressive, blanking darkness. Above them the trees seemed to stretch and reach across the clearing to give not an inch for a finger of light, nor to hint at a breeze. Claustrophobia had never been something she often went in for, however standing there in the rapidly cooling dark, she would have given an arm in exchange for so much as a glimpse of the sky.

"Close to what?" Emma asked, hating how much like a whisper her voice came out but it could not be helped. The darker it got, the eerier the whole damn island became. Hook did not look back at her, did not even seem to hear her and silence engulfed them. _There aren't any birds, _she noticed as they stopped moving_. No birds, no squirrels, no... anything. _

Okay, so Neverland wasn't exactly covered in National Geographic, but nature was nature, right? There had to be some kind of wildlife. And yet...

Emma drew her sword slowly and unconsciously took a step closer to Hook; in the corner of her eye, she saw Regina's hand spasm, as if resisting the urge to create a fireball. A whisper, so soft she barely heard it, came from Hook, his voice sounding almost sing-song, "_Come out, come out_." A moment went by in which Emma wasn't entirely sure she didn't think she imagined it.

But then: "What gave me away?"

Emma spun to face the voice. Her jaw dropped. No way. _No fucking way_.

On a branch, lackadaisically stretched across it with her feet swinging behind her and her head resting on her palms, was a girl. Petite, curvy, with wild and thick blonde hair piled atop her head, dressed in what appeared to be strategically placed ivy leaves and strips of green cotton. Her wide mouth was curled into a wicked grin and even from forty feet away, Emma could see her bright blue eyes sparkling mischievously.

This was not normal.

Now, 'normal' was not something she would ever claim to be in the first place, even without all the fairytale bullshit, but this was really getting out of hand. If this girl was who Emma suspected she was, Emma was seriously, _seriously_, considering swan-diving off the clock tower in Storybrooke.

"Just a feeling," Hook said with a flirtatious tone that briefly reminded her of their short sword fight in the Enchanted Forest, taunting her about more enjoyable activities. He stepped forward somewhat brazenly. "That and I can smell fairy dust from a mile away."

_A fairy, then, not a pixie? Though_ _I highly doubt Mother Superior would ever rock that much cleavage_, Emma thought. The girl giggled and blushed, waving him off with a small hand. Next to her, Regina snorted and rolled her eyes, earning a matching pair of glares - a warning from Hook and indignant fury from the girl. Emma suppressed a slightly arrogant twitch of satisfaction at the cowed look on the mayor's face with a mental picture of Henry, reminding herself of why they were here in the first place.

She cleared her throat. "I don't mean to interrupt, cause watching Captain Hook flirt with a preschooler is just the highlight of my day," she said, sarcasm bleeding through her insofar highly tested patience, "but if you were following us this whole time then you probably know what we're here for." She ignored Hook's frown, focusing instead on maintaining eye contact with the fairy.

"You're here for the boy," she said, rolling off of the branch, twisting in midair and landing lightly on her bare feet. "Henry."

"Right, Henry." Emma let relief wash over her for a moment. "Have you seen him? He's eleven, about this tall, asks a lot of questions?" Her hand hovered mid-ribcage. The fairy pursed her lips, moving them from side to side, eyes narrowed as she considered the older blonde. Emma shifted. Despite being at least ten years older than this broad, something about her scrutinising stare reminded her of the first genuinely crappy foster home in which she had been placed. Mrs. Sullivan had made her stand in the foyer, seven year old hand still clutching her garbage bag full of clothes and knick-knacks, as she circled her, tutting and tsking, muttering about sloppiness and haircuts. It had been awful and humiliating and the feeling surged within her now, followed quickly by anger.

"Tink. Have you seen him?" Hook interjected, sensing something was brewing that perhaps should not be.

_Tinker Bell. Awesome. _Emma fought with herself not to sigh in frustration. The whole 'my life is literally turning into a fairytale' crap was getting old, fast. Funnily enough, she had been wondering when she would approach the 'line': to what end could she put up with this ridiculousness and when would she finally snap? Snow White and Prince Charming being her parents and her age, she was apparently totally down with; having a conversation with Tinker Bell in Neverland while Captain Hook tried to play mediator was, however unsurprisingly, pushing it.

Tinker Bell turned on her heel but didn't walk away, looking mightily like a three year old throwing a tantrum. She shook her head vigourously. "Can't help you," she said. "My lips are sealed." For extra good measure, she pinched her thumb and forefinger and dragged it across her mouth. Emma genuinely had never wanted to deck someone so badly. Her hand ached from clutching her sword so tightly.

"Don't lie to me, Tink. You know better." Hook took another step forward, looking not nearly as confident as he sounded.

"M'not. I have not seen the boy," Tinker Bell shrugged.

Emma opened her mouth with a bitter retort, but Regina beat her to the punch: "But you know where he is." She was impatient and growing angrier by the second.

Tinker Bell did not reply for a long moment, but she did turn back, slowly and lips pursed as if sucking on a particularly sour lemon. She sighed dramatically and stared, frankly bored, at her nails. "Perhaps."

"Where?" Regina demanded, hand twitching again. _Just do it,_ Emma thought angrily, _just fry her. _Had she spoken aloud, the older woman more than likely would have acquiesced to the request, and Emma floundered for a second: should she be happy about the Henry induced sudden camaraderie or scared as to where that left her own, admittedly too-often dubious, moral compass?

Whatever. She could figure it out when Henry was back. This was taking up too much precious time, time he didn't have. She had to act, now, consequences be damned.

Without pausing to think, she stormed forward, sword raised, and in the space of mere seconds the tip of the blade was pressed tightly against the pale, exposed flesh of Tinker Bell's neck. The fairy did not seemed awfully phased, all too familiar with cold steel and far more brutal intentions than a frustrated mother, but there must have been enough of _something_ in Emma's face to rattle the fairy. Her eyes became gentle. Emma's did not.

"I'm running out of shits to give, sister. Either help me get my son back or get out of the way. Last chance." Emma flicked her wrist and dug the edge of her sword in slightly deeper. Tinker Bell took a step back, hands raised.

"Pan has him," she said hurriedly. Emma came closer, sword slack but not down. Tinker Bell continued, "I don't know where, although I _do_ know someone who might."

Regina let out a breath. "Who?"

Tinker Bell's smile was crooked and grim, "How familiar are you with witch doctors?"


End file.
